What do you get when you merge a lie detector, a job application and a mobile app?

Mobile apps have certainly made a wide range of documents — including job applications, insurance claims and consumer surveys — easier to handle. But can they also silently add truth detection and emotion interpretation to increase the forms' accura...

Mobile apps have certainly made a wide range of documents — including job applications, insurance claims and consumer surveys — easier to handle. But can they also silently add truth detection and emotion interpretation to increase the forms' accuracy and value to companies?

A U.K. company that goes by the name Human is arguing it can. It pairs video captured from a mobile device (or, sometimes, a retailer's closed-circuit television camera) with analytics software that examines the subject's face and tries to determine the most likely emotions being felt at that instant. Does a job applicant pause and grimace before answering that he has never been convicted of a felony or that leaving his last job was his own idea?